Earl Norman

The Earl Norman books are becoming extremely rare, and publishers don’t seem to be interested in reprinting the series. The only way some of us may ever have all the stories is for collectors to scan and type the stories into PDF to swap with other collectors. I have already completed PDFs of HANG ME IN HONG KONG and KILL ME IN ROPPONGI. I am working on KILL ME IN YOKOSUKA. If other collectors would do the same for some of the other books, we could eventually have PDFs of all ten books. Why not help? I can be contacted at fadingshadows40@gmail.com

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Affair In Hong Kong

Affair In Hong Kong by Dorothy Daniels. Once in a while you find a good story where you least expect
it. Dorothy Daniels is known for her Gothic Romance novels, but she is also
noted for being the wife of pulp scribe Norman Daniels. Dorothy assisted her husband
with his pulp writing for twenty years, and then went on to help him in the
paperback field after the pulps ceased. She was very familiar with mysteries
and intrigues in novel writing. In fact, when this book came out, Norman was
writing the Baron of Hong Kong series, and had written the Man From A.P.E.
espionage series prior. Both series were very similar. I found one of the Man
From A.P.E. novels very strongly similar to Dorothy’s writing, so it’s not
surprising to find a nice little intrigue in this current novel. Airline
Stewardess, Janis Lowell falls in love with one of her frequent passengers,
Bruce Doran. When Bruce asks her for a date, her heart is all a flutter, but
during the dinner, he has her perform a small favor that makes her think of espionage.
Then later, when a Chinese gentleman mysteriously dies before boarding the
plane, she learns it is murder, and she may be involved in some way. A Chinese
espionage agent is after something the dead man supposedly concealed, and Janis
knows where it is. But why is Bruce acting so strangely. Even though he tells
her he loves her, and wants to marry her, does he know more than he’s
revealing? And what is in the strange package she has in her possession that
the Chinese will kill for? There isn’t a lot of action, like fights and gun
battles, but Janis continues pulling dumb stunts that almost gets her killed,
and the intrigue is definitely heavy. Not a bad story, regardless of the lack
of action.